Software Engineer
Ryan Saperstein
I build the app that runs youth sports leagues — the one coaches, parents, and players actually open on game day.
Northeastern grad, previously at the Broad Institute and VMware. I like software that holds up under real-world mess. On the side, I'm building Phoenix, a programming language written from scratch in Rust.
Now: building Playbook's all-in-one platform for leagues, coaches, and parents.
React Native · Rust · Programming languages
Featured Projects
From award-winning hackathon projects to production applications serving real users
Bazaar Game
Sep - Dec 2024Distributed multiplayer board game with client-server architecture
Phoenix
March 2026 - PresentA strict, statically typed programming language for full-stack web development
Other Projects
RecoverWE & Help App
Mobile apps providing recovery resources for a New Jersey non-profit
Image Processing Application
Advanced image manipulation tool with custom filters and effects
VMware Workflow Debugger
Internal tool for parsing and analyzing log bundles
Featured Posts
Latest writing on software, product, and building in public
Professional Experience
Playbook Sports
Software Developer
Hoboken, NJ
- •Rebuilt the production real-time chat end to end (Django/Channels backend, typed React Native client), collapsing 3 message types, 3 WebSocket consumers, and ~20 REST endpoints into 1 schema, 1 consumer, and 11 endpoints, backed by 300+ tests where there were almost none
- •Shipped the rewrite behind a one-hour maintenance-window cutover with ID-pinned backfill, additive-then-FK-swap migrations, and legacy data kept as a rollback safety net
- •Closed two production security gaps in one release: a magic-link token exposure (redesigned around server-signed, 15-minute tokens) and a public S3 bucket (replaced with per-user scoped access)
- •Moved deep-link routing from the client into a Django service, cutting ~200 lines of app-side logic so link changes ship without an app-store release
Generate Product Development
Tech Lead, Frontend
Boston, MA
- •Co-led a six-engineer team shipping an MVP mobile app from zero for an early-stage founder; owned all frontend architecture across a React Native/TypeScript codebase
- •Designed the navigation, component, and data-fetching patterns the team built every screen against: an auth-aware root navigator plus a typed React Query hook layer centralizing auth, caching, and loading state
- •Patterns held up through six engineers and full MVP delivery, with no major refactors as scope grew
Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Software Engineer Co-op
Cambridge, MA
- •Added support for a new revision of the WDL spec (the language biologists use to define genomic pipelines) in Cromwell, the Broad's open-source Scala workflow engine
- •After a bug I caused reached production undetected, traced it to a years-old TODO that capped the integration test framework's type coverage to strings and ints; rewrote the framework to support complex types and backfilled coverage
VMware
Co-op Member of Technical Staff
Boston, MA
- •Built a CLI tool that parses customer log bundles (hundreds of thousands of lines) into a queryable, filterable interface, cutting ticket-debugging time from days to hours
- •Contributed features to the VMware Cloud Director platform, working across RESTful APIs and PostgreSQL
Saperstein Software Solutions
Owner & Software Developer
Remote
- •Co-built two production React Native apps for a NJ non-profit over a four-year engagement; shaped the roadmap with non-technical stakeholders and jointly owned architecture and delivery
- •Shipped to iOS and Android, with 2,000+ downloads across 6 counties
Skills & Expertise
Languages
Frontend
Backend & Data
Infrastructure & Tooling
Compilers & Systems
About Me
Northeastern CS grad, now building mobile apps at Playbook Sports. Nine years on from the middle-school robotics team that started it.
9+
Years Coding
4
Apps Shipped
4
Blog Posts
I started programming in eighth grade on my middle school's robotics team. What began as curiosity turned into nine years of building things, from Arduino projects to leading engineering teams.
At Northeastern I earned a B.S. in Computer Science with an AI concentration, graduating Summa Cum Laude, with coursework spanning algorithms through machine learning.
Today I'm a Software Developer at Playbook Sports, building an all-in-one sports management app for leagues, coaches, and parents. Before that: co-ops at VMware and the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, Tech Lead at Generate Product Development, and my own consultancy building mobile apps for non-profits.
My Journey
The Beginning
Started programming in 8th grade on my middle school's robotics team
High School
FIRST Robotics Competition team member, Code Club projects from LED snowflakes to mobile apps
Northeastern University
B.S. Computer Science with AI concentration, Summa Cum Laude (3.93 GPA)
Professional Experience
Software Developer at Playbook Sports; Tech Lead at Generate; Co-op at Broad Institute & VMware
Beyond the Code
Reading
- Frankenstein - Mary Shelley
- The Hobbit - J.R.R. Tolkien
Movies & TV
- Interstellar
- Sci-fi enthusiast
Activities
- Cooking
- Wiffle Ball
Music
- Rock classics
- Metallica, AC/DC, Weezer